Pretending to combine psychoanalytic and social theories yields only mechanical reduction

Evidence

It seems like a perfectly reasonable deal, until you realize that psychoanalysis has done little or no work. It has simply sat back and said: we have the theory of psychic reality which does not require us to have a theory of racism. So let the social scientists produce a theory of racism, which does not have a theory of the unconscious. Then we add our model of psychic structuration to their theory of social structuration and hey presto, we have a fully fledged theory of racism. … But actually we have nothing of the kind. The psychoanalysts think they have solved the interaction of the psychic to the social when all they have done is brought them into a purely mechanical and mutually reductive relation. And en route, they have given the social scientists an alibi for thinking they do not need to explain the deeper, more unconscious reaches of the racist imagination, in order to understand its versatility and power of resistance to rational argument or structural reform. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1312

Categorization

• XREF: Sharply qualifies how theories of racism should be integrated — relates to the vault’s critical-race-theory definitions that treat racism as a structuration phenomenon needing its own theory. — connects to: Psychoanalysis reduces the social to the psychological by axiom; Psychoanalytic theories of racism have often been reductive and themselves racist — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1297; Freudian political psychology produced many hypotheses but drew reductionism critiques — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 332 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Freudian political psychology produced many hypotheses but drew reductionism critiques #corroborates (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 332
• Sociology treats psychological processes only as carriers of social forms #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 208
• Psychoanalysis reduces the social to the psychological by axiom #corroborates (0.75)
• Psychoanalytic theories of racism have often been reductive and themselves racist #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1297
• Individual psychodynamic theories cannot explain coordinated mass scapegoating #corroborates (0.72)